Customer Reviews

Genesis: A Commentary

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was so surprised to see so many negative reviews of this commentary which I have fallen in love with, that I decided to write a review myself.

First of all, Waltke's command of Hebrew and the decision to bring out certain aspects of the Hebrew text is selective, not exhaustive. For example, he does not cover every nuance of the Hebrew text in a verse, but does cover significant issues especially with an eye towards exegetical work (so it's a great tool for pastors-cutting through the chaff and getting to the kernel of the issue). Let me illustrate by looking at Waltke's coverage of 'Book 1 of 10 in Genesis'. In Genesis 2:4a (pg 83) he says : "This the account" [toledot] (sorry I cannot make the Hebrew transliteration look like his typesetting). This word is the signal marker for the beginning of each of the ten books of Genesis. Toledot, from the root yld, meaning "to bear children" here signifies "what is produced or brought into being by someone." It is the nominal form of the root, meaning "descendants." The account pertains to what the cosmos has generated, not the generation of the cosmos.

If you desire more on this, you will have to read someone like Victor Hamilton's NICOT or any number of fuller technical works on Genesis. But for the pastor preparing a sermon, he boils it down to the essentials without TMI (too much information).

For each book in Genesis (he sees 10) Waltke follows a pattern that I find refreshing to read in comparison to fuller commentaries. He starts out with a section called "Theme of Book 1" or 2 and so on. It is a short summary in normal language of that part of Genesis. Then he gives an outline of the book. He breaks it down into Acts, Scenes and Epilogues. This is very logical and consistent and brings out the literary structure of Genesis in a way that really connects well with everyone I've been teaching so far. That's very helpful from a pastors point of view.

Then he does a broad segment called 'Literary Analysis of Book 1'. He covers a bit on Genre, structure and plot, escalation, characters, conflict, irony and innertextuality. After all of this he gives a segment called 'Exegetical Notes to Book 1' In this he gives cogent comments for each part of each verse, sometimes focusing on significant words, such as 'Adam' in Genesis 2:7 with quick overview of the play on words in the Hebrew text and some well polished phrases to sum it up in English (a lot of his stuff is ready made for preaching). The format is pleasant to read for any regular person, not packed with lots of parenthetical phrases or Hebrew, Greek, Latin fonts. Everything is transliterated and smoothly presented.

He has everything organized by Book, Act, Scene. If that is confusing, matching scripture references are retained next to those, and there is a contents table at the front of the book for anyone who is a bit confused by that arrangement. I found it very helpful to use.

Anyhow, after his section on Exegetical Notes, then he has a major segment that I believe will tempt some pastors to skip to this part immediately. It is his segment called Theological Reflections on Book 1 (or 2 or whatever book he is on). He takes crucial theological concepts like 'Second Adam' and gives the major cross links with enough food for thought to get any Bible teacher moving into a major spiritual treasure trove.

After all of his Theological Reflections (which I never find in regular commentaries), then he also offers a segment called Excursus. On Book 1 it is Genesis Genealogies.

I think some of the criticisms of this commentary that are on this website, reflect the hopes and needs of a more scholarly approach than the target of this commentary is intended to assist. This book is a Gold Medallion Award Winning book. The back cover attempts to posit the book as a good tool for everyone from pastor, to scholar, to student, to Bible-lover. I'm not sure scholars or Graduate students will like this tool as much as the heavier duty commentaries out there. But I absolutely love this commentary. I'm very glad that I decided to purchase a copy, and I urge pastors and Bible teachers who have an eye for bringing the text into the hearts of people everywhere to use this commentary in your research of the text.

Overall Waltke gives about 30 pages of information for Genesis 2:4 through the end of chapter 4. Comparing this to Victor Hamilton's NICOT with 92 pages for the same text, and you can see why I call this a 'shorter commentary'. However, Waltke is extremely helpful, particularly for busy pastors and teachers who have to prepare messages week in and week out and draw out not only accurate exegetical thought, but relevant theological and practical application from the text.

Other resources: I would also suggest Hamilton's two volume set NICOT or Wenham's Word Biblical Commentary (2 volumes) on Genesis for the fuller treatment that is sometimes needed on parts of the text. I really love Sidney Greidanus on "Preaching Christ from Genesis" for developing exegetical sermons from Genesis.

Bruce Waltke's commentary was useful as a resource for the recent Adult Sunday School class I taught on Genesis 11-50. It doesn't go into as much technical detail as Gordon Wehnam's (Word biblical commentary section), which makes it suited for use by interested laymen who aren't doing advanced study.

Waltke makes good use of David Dorsey's structural outlines (usually chiastic) (from The literary structure of the Old Testament, which are helpful in pointing the reader to compare and contrast one section of the text with another, possibly non-obvious section of text.

For each portion of Genesis Waltke covers includes literary analysis, exegetical details, and theological reflections, which are generally Reformed in tenor. I liked how Waltke referenced God changing his mind about humanity in the flood: "The unchanging God is always pained by sin. Moreover, because he is immutable, he will always change his plans to do good if people persist in their sin: "If it [a nation] does evil in my sight, and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good that I had intended to do for it" (Jer 18:10, ...) God's change of mind about the human race at the time of the flood, is entirely consistent with his unchanging character. God is not fickle, he does not change his mind, including his mind to reconsider. People can count on God always to reconsider his original intention to do good or evil according to the human response."

Waltke follows the usual "majority report" on the impropriety of deception in Genesis, seeing Abraham and Jacob as solely negative examples. Interestingly, and in a very well-argued section, he shows how Tamar is a model of gentile faithfulness in her actions to gain her rightful offspring from fallen Judah.

Waltke's commentary doesn't deal in any great detail with archaeological or scientific difficulties that Genesis presents, though he has reflections (tending to support historical validity) for some of them, such as the alleged anachronism of camels, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire.

A unique contribution is his highlighting of areas of the narrative that contain "blanks" or "gaps". For Waltke, "blanks" are inconsequential omissions from what we might think we would like to know for a full account of a story, and "gaps" are intentional omissions that have narrative weight. Waltke frequently draws attention to these aspects of the text. Waltke cites the lack of a "these are the generations of Isaac" sectional head as another aspect of the narratives criticism of the character of Isaac.

Waltke's commentary is a fine addition or even starting point for anyone dealing with a detailed or literary study of Genesis, and will find good theological insight as well.

As a final note, I can see the point of one of the 2 star reviewers, that the book reads like class notes, which is what they developed from. I didn't find that as offputting, but I can see it as a flaw in some respects. I'm also not as perturbed by the kinds of literary analysis that seems "from left field", though I can see that someone new to it would need some hand-holding. James B. Jordan's Through New Eyes would be excellent in that regard.

Waltke (former Westminster prof) is a real master of the OT. This commentary is generally solid, but uneven. It has the feel of cleaned up lecture notes. In some places it is extremely rich and insightful, in others surprisingly thin and obvious.

Anyone teaching or preaching through Genesis will want this, but will also want to read a few others. Allen Ross is probably the most detailed and helpful. Victor Hamilton in the NICOT series is helpful, but I found theologically problematic at places. Boice is homiletical, careful, Reformed, bt tends to be more moralistic than Christ-centered. Indispensible are the two Iain Duguid volumes on select parts of Genesis. Kidner in TOT series is good.

Dr. Waltke has presented us with the best commentary on Genesis that I have read in a long time. As a Bible study leader this book is indispensable. He exegetes each section which he has divided up into Acts & Scenes - don't let this confuse you, it his own way of "separating" the contents. He not only give us exegetical notes but includes a theological review of each "Act". I have never read a book so designed to correctly use the Word of God. It not only is a delight to read but is a most helpful book for preparing a Bible study. His insights and high view of God are inspiring.

I ordered this book when I was taking an Old Testament Course at Seminary. But it was only after I had completed another class on Hermeneutics that I really started to appreciate this book. I am supplementing my beginning of the year read through the Bible with this book and finding it amazing.

Understanding God's purposes and plan for mankind really comes alive when you read the Genesis narrative with someone who has a good grasp of exegesis and how God uses narratives to lead us to Christ.

I am still a new learner in this area, but the great thing is that I am discovering totally new applications of the Scriptures after many years of reading it. This isn't dry reading. It makes the Bible come to life and intersects with my everyday living. What an encouragement!

I am working on my thesis for my masters degree on a passage in Genesis, so I have had opportunity to read portions of about 30 Genesis commentaries so far. As a result, I would put Waltke's commentary in the bottom third of the Genesis commentaries I have read. I read it cover to cover for a seminary course, and I was able to obtain a complete understanding of what he was saying. Since Waltke is a big name, I was very surprised at what I found.
Structure of the book: This is not at all a good cover-to-cover read. He divides the Genesis account into Books, Acts, and Scenes. For instance, Book 8, Act 2, Scene 3 is titled "Jacob Betrothed to Rachel." His outlining convention is fine, but rather than make reference to the biblical stories again in later "scenes" he will refer to Jacob's deception in Act 1 scene 4, which is not at all helpful. He gives the structure of each story, keywords, and makes comments on what the author omitted. There are short references made to many important terms and phrases in the passage being developed, followed by theological reflections and literary analysis. He draws out many interesting comparisons and contrasts throughout the book and has some thought provoking comments on literary structure of the passages.
The preface explains how these are class notes converted into a commentary. It certainly comes across that way. That is one of the biggest negatives of the book.
The thing that most readers will find frustrating is that Waltke's speculations about various texts are so intertwined with his historical/grammatical comments that it is frequently hard to tell what are purely opinions, and what is based on scripture. His theological presuppositions (which I am not entirely in oppostion to) influence greatly his understandings of many texts. The informed reader will find himself asking "Where did he get that from?" Where the novice will have trouble distinguishing the good from the bad.
Here is one of several examples that left me shaking my head (p. 591): "Interetingly the factorization of the life spans of the patriarchs follows a distinct pattern: Abraham 175 = 5x5x7; Isaac 180=6x6x5; Jacob 147=7x7x3." He goes on to quote Sarna who sees this as exhibition of God's grand design. The commentary has several other strange conclusions and interjections such as this that will leave you scratching your head.
The remaining information in the book is marginally helpful. If you are on a budget for your book buying, it would be better to look elsewhere for material that is more helpful.

I have approximately 15 commentaries on this first great book of the Bible, and I would argue that Bruce Waltke's is the most balanced and theologically-sound of them all. He cares very much about the specific language and cultural context of the book, but always points us to the broader theological themes of Genesis and the entire Bible. If you need to buy one commentary on Genesis, this is the one I would recommend.

I basically read through the book of Genesis in the Bible, and used this commentary as a help. It took me 6 months and it was a great experience. There are very many reasons why I like this book. Here are some of them:

1) The book introduces the lay person to some helpful technical vocabulary such as janus, chiasm and so on. Where Waltke & Fredricks discuss Hebrew, a transliteration is given along with explanations. This being an Intro level book, the commentary thankfully does not bog the reader down in debates that some OT scholars might have over the use of some yod somewhere.

2) The book pushes you to think about what is going on psychologically with the characters in Genesis. One example is the character change in Joseph's brothers, especially Judah. That was quite enlightening. Or perhaps you wonder what it was like for Reuben and his brothers to grow up living in the shadow of an unloved mother. How would that affect them throughout life? Or Jacob's prayerless-ness - how does that impact the family?

3) The book also pushes you to think in a biblical theological (i.e. tracing a theme) manner. Reading Genesis this time around, I was really sensitive to the idea of covenant.

4) The book just brings up stuff that you may not have noticed before. I always thought that Jacob and Esau were really young - teens maybe - when the Birthright incident took place. I also thought that Jacob might have left for Laban's on the very same day that he received Esau's birthright. Well I see things differently now. BTW - how old was Jacob when he his children?

On the negative side:

1) You have just read some verses or a chapter in Genesis and you are ready to dive into the commentary. So you turn to the relevant section only to find out that you first need to read a Theological Reflections section and then a Literary Analysis section before you can get to where you want to. While these sections have a lot of good information on say Typology, Structure and Plot and so on, you still would rather have jumped right to the commentary on the verses themselves. I suppose I could have done that, but anyway.

I have found this work extremely helpful aid in the study of Genesis. Walke is very organized in his outlines and breakdown of the unfolding drama. I will revisit this commentary when I study Genesis in the future and well as look for other works by this author.

this is possibly the best commentary that I have read on Genesis so far in my 21 years of existence. Bruce Waltke opens up the the beginnings of Genesis like a christmas present on Christmas morning. Reading through his acts and scenes gave this book a whole new adventure. I admit the scenes were a little hard to follow but the content was absolutely incredible!
His blending together the seed of the woman with the lineage of Adam all the way through Abraham and beyond was incredible. He does such a masterful job of presenting salvific history through the lens of the great patriarchal fathers of Noah through Abraham. Those that are less informed of Genesis (Me!) can easily pick up this book and flip through its easy to read format and flow.
I could go on and on about this commentary but I still have more to read! So if you are concidering a good commentary on Genesis then your search can take a pit stop with this one because it will give you a taste of its well and direct you towards other commentators that contribute to this amazing book. God Bless you and God Bless Bruce....Seriously.